Robot bird gracefully lands on a human hand

First Successful Robotic Perching on a Human Hand by a Robotic Bird Airplane (MAV/ UAV)Aerospace Robotics and Control

A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign have made a robotic bird that can fly by flapping
its wings, and can navigate while gliding. But the biggest hurdle
has been getting it to land gracefully.

"Of all manoeuvres executed by flapping wing aircraft in a
gliding phase, a perched landing is arguably the most challenging,"
says Aditya Paranjape, a postdoctoral scholar working on the
project.

In real life, a bird has no trouble landing on a tree branch, a building ledge, or even a
super-thin power cable. But that's a tricky prospect for a robot:
the perching manoeuvre happens very quickly, and a successful
landing requires a huge level of accuracy.

"Our aerial robot concept lacks a vertical tail for improved
agility, similar to birds, which renders it dynamically unstable
and exacerbates both of these factors," said Paranjape.

The bird's secret solution is in its articulated wings, and
trailing-edge flaps. These are more elegant than bulky actuators,
and give the bird the necessary manoeuvrability to perform that
tricky two stage perch: the dive-bomb glide, followed by the last
minute rapid pitch up, instantaneous climb and rapid
deceleration.

You can see it pull off the stunt, and land on a human hand (the
team chose a hand to prove that such robots can operate safely
around people) in the video.

The team still has a lot to learn from nature. Assistant
professor Soon-Jo Chung says "Bats
can fly with damaged wings. They are so agile and highly
manoeuvrable; they can make rapid 180-degree turns autonomously and
they can fly indoors without colliding with obstacles. These
qualities are desirable for small aircraft that could be used in
surveillance."

Edited by Duncan Geere

Comments

Well caught, now do it without moving the landing target ;-0

Dave

May 3rd 2012

Hey - lol. baby flaps, my friend, baby flaps.

Devlin57

May 4th 2012

I sense a new fad coming.... robotic messenger pigeons that always return to their owner.